(Attachment to Minutes for March 21: Saturday, March 19 Email --Preparation for the Monday Meeting of the Alternative Education Committee, Elaine Packard, Chair)

I have taken the notes from last week's meeting and organized them for your review before we meet on Monday.

I have started with the decision of one group to use "The Best Practices of Authentic Alternative Schools" (see the handout "Understanding the Pseudo-Alternative School Checklist") and then fit the other two groups' comments under one of those practices. The "Best Practices" are in capital letters. The other comments are from the two groups. The section "OTHER" is for the comments that didn't seem to match one of the "Best Practices."

1. CHOICE: Choice and choice.

2. OPEN TO ANY STUDENT

3. CONTINUOUS: Re-entry as a way of being alternative. (This comment is actually opposite of the description of this practice.)

4. THERE IS NO BEST WAY TO LEARN: personalized; teaching is flexible, experimental, student-directed; individualized--tailored to individual student; begins with needs and interests; self-regulation and motivation.

5. SMALL

6. SHARED DECISIONMAKING: valuing of all voices; willing to take on difficult conversations, stand up for beliefs, modeling this for the kids; student ownership of the program, school, curriculum, rules, building

7. SERVICE LEARNING

8. ALTERNATIVE SCHEDULING AND ATTENDANCE POLICIES

9. ALTERNATIVE ASSESSMENT

10. CARING AND DEMANDING TEACHERS: curriculum--rigor, mastery, fluency balanced with nurturing school climate

11. MODIFYNG CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION: teachers are empowered to take the time they need to meet students' whole person needs--not rushed to "on time" graduation

12. A CARING SCHOOL CLIMATE: school climate and culture are valued; deep respect for all members of the community; parent/teacher/student roles, relationships

13. COMPREHENSIVENESS: community involvement (family, other)

14. CLEAR MISSION AND OBJECTIVES: articulated purpose/mission/vision (beyond simply academic achievement); intentionality--re-examining and re-evaluation

15. OTHER: community control of staff and administration (Elaine: this will probably be one of our policy recommendations); alternative school accommodates kids instead of expecting kids to accommodate the system; all deep work, nothing at face value; multi-year relationships; structure; behavior modification; satisfies graduation requirements.

***I would like members to re-read the following handouts and circle statements that strike you as important. I will collect these from you at the meeting as additional information for writing a statement.***

a. "Understanding the Pseudo-Alternative School Checklist"

b. "Alternative Schools Statement", "Questions facing alternative schools" (printed back to back)

c. "Characteristics of alternative schools as identified by schools from Alternative Label survey"

The format for Monday's meeting will be to spend 5 minutes on each of the 14 Best Practices and the "OTHER" section to hear what each means to you. Based on the comments from this meeting, I will work with a small group to draft an operational definition for consideration at our 3/28 meeting.

Our last meeting was a great "storming" meeting. My hope is that Monday's meeting will build on everyone's ideas in a more highly structured process. I'll do my best to keep us on track!